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Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League, Inc.

At our October meeting, more than a dozen EDC mobile home parks were represented.

Guest speakers were Greg Prada from E.I.D. Board and John Bertaut from Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League (gsmol.org). They educated us about our legal rights and the unnecessary spending going on at EID. Instead of reducing customer rates now that their infrastructure upgrades are paid off, they want to keep collecting from us and buying unnecessary water rights! We deserve to have our rates reduced!!

El Dorado County Kicks Off Space Rent Stabilization Ordinance Drive

EDMOC’s Board Chair, Tamara Janies, and Asst. Treasurer, Michelle Smith, were interviewed by the local newspaper; the article appeared on the front page the day before their first meeting: “Are Vulture Capitalists Preying on Mobilehome Owners?” You MUST read this:

The Board members learned about SRSO through their memberships in GSMOL (Golden State Manufactured

Home-Owners League, Inc.) The League promotes the interest of mobilehome owners in California through legislation, networking, and education. EDMOC established a Speakers Bureau so coalition members can go into the community, by invitation, to educate the public, clubs, organizations, and mobilehome owners about the need for an SRSO and mobile home owner legal rights.

Their mission is to “Establish a Space Rent Stabilization Ordinance to protect Seniors, Veterans, Disabled, and low income families from being economically evicted from homes we own due to excessive rent increases.”

Mobilehome owners in parks live in a precarious situation; they own their homes but not the land the home sits on. Unregulated space rent is akin to a monopoly because mobile home owners don’t have the choice to move their homes - they are not really mobile.

Several mobilehome parks in El Dorado County have recently been purchased by out of town LLC investor groups. Rents immediately increased when the water & garbage were extracted from the rent, leaving home-owners to pay them separately; then rents increased. Two of those park rents are now $700-$850 a month plus utilities for new owners moving in. Then long term-leases are demanded under the duress of threatened rent increases every 6 months. Signed leases of more than 12 months can be used as collateral by investors to take even more loans out on the parks and the beat goes on. Loans get approved, rents go up to pay for loans, etc.

Most mobilehome owners are on fixed incomes and risk losing the equity in their homes if they cannot afford to pay the rent increases. The idea of half or more of their income going into the pockets of out of town investors is appalling. * “An appraiser’s rule of thumb is that the value of a mobilehome decreases by $10,000.00 for every $100.00 increase in the monthly space rent, per *Bruce Stanton, GSMOL’s Corporate Attorney and legal specialist in the Mobile Residency Law (MRL).

Space Rent Stabilization is consumer protection, and has become necessary to prevent unjustified or excessive rent increases. In some jurisdictions, rent regulation is the sole means of ensuring the survival of the mobilehome lifestyle.”* Without such consumer protection, how are vulnerable populations

in our county going to find affordable housing? What will the county do with an increasing senior homeless population? We must answer our own questions by taking action to protect ourselves as soon as possible!!

Message from El Dorado County Mobilehome Owners

We are senior citizens, disabled Veterans, and low income families who have found a way to provide ourselves with a small piece of the American Dream by owning our own homes. Ours happen to be Mobile and Manufactured homes, located in El Dorado County's mobile home parks.

That means we are paying "lot fees" to park owners to have our homes on their land, a small plot of dirt with electrical, water, sewage, and propane hookups to our homes.

This LAST vestige of AFFORDABLE HOUSING is now under ATTACK. Out of town predatory LLC Corporate investors have begun buying mobile home parks in our county (think Greenstone Estates, Diamond Springs MHP, & Bonanza MHP). WE DESERVE PROTECTION!

We are now faced with anonymous, out of town corporate investorscoming into our county, buying parks, and using us as "cash cows" by raising rents and scaring residents into signing long term leases (25-30 years), using the threat of rent increases every 6 months! What happened to keeping money in our county to help local businesses & stimulate our economy...shop local, etc., etc.?? These out of town investors ARE NOT SPENDING OUR SPACE RENT $ in El Dorado County!

We are a captive market as we own our homes but rent the plot of dirt they sit on. Unlike other renters, if we are mistreated or economically priced out of our space, we not only lose a place to live but potentially lose the equity in our homes. Higher space rent equals less marketability and reduced home values. We are asking for reasonable rent rate increases based on CPI (Consumer Price Index) and COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment).

Previous “Mom & Pop” mobile home park owners are selling to out of town, anonymous LLC corporate investors. They have the ability to raise rents every 90 days with a 90 day notice and they threaten to do so. Our rent $$ does NOT get spent in El Dorado County anymore.

One senior park, recently purchased by an out of town investor LLC, had long-term leases foisted on seniors, using fear as leverage to have the residents sign long-term leases, leases that have no benefit to the homeowners. These leases are being uses as refinance schemes, benefiting park owners and leaving homeowners in the dark with little understanding and recourse, with nowhere to go when they lose their homes to skyrocketing rents. We do not want to becomef “cash cows” for out of town investors or unreasonable park owners.

We need your help!

Our goal is to have a Rent Stabilization Ordinance initiative placed on the ballot for El Dorado County voters in 2020. We need to obtain funding for the ballot initiative, collect LOTS of signatures, recruit volunteers, attain sponsorships, create networking opportunities, and forge friendships to help spread the word. WE NEED YOU!